Im seriously considering getting a 560 to replace my 8800 GT (I bought that to play Crysis all those years ago) and that would be the card i'm after as there is no need to bolt on a fat-ass after market cooler.

Uhm, what ? Did i read what i read ? I own this card, and sorry, but i see this review saying something i find hardly believable.

1) Idle power consumption of this card was EXACTLY the same as the stock HD5870. i5 750 + HD5870 was 117W, i5 750 + GTX570 Phantom + GS8400 was 127W. So with one extra card, i managed to get a whopping 10W idle increase. How did you managed to get 30W difference between HD5870 and GTX570 Phantom is something i will never understand.
2) 1800RPM cooling - hm... good joke. http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/5363/bc2p.png - that is auto fan, Define R3 with 2 intakes and 3 outtakes, two of outtakes are Enermax Magmas at top (=hot air goes out as quickly as possible). 1800RPM is possible only with very, very light 3D usage. Even TF2 will move you up to 2000RPM region.

What I fail to see is why they've opted to keep the Triple-SLI headers on the board. Surely there's no motherboard out there, save the Classified SR-2, that could possibly run THREE three-slot cards?

Because the board could also be used for single-slot or dual-slot coolers. Much cheaper to run with the one board, and much cheaper than re-engineering the platform to remove the extra SLI support. (The extra header will add virtually no manufacturing cost to the card)